How to Tightly Fit an Antique Door | Ask This Old House

Hello Walterman, how are you? Hello, Tommy. Pleased to meet you. Nice to see you. It's a big old

house

, but it's a busy street. Yeah, it's kind of okay. Show me what you're coming from. Oh, look at

this

. It's a work in progress. I feel like I'm in one of my workplaces, yes, thanks for trying to keep the dust out of the living room. Oh yeah, I know that trick well and these stairs, the ones who do all the work on the stairs, it's actually my wife and I, you know? to fix it right for you, well, you unscrew it and glue it all together, that's not going to squeak, what are you doing with the floorboards?

Let's recover the floors in

this

house

, so we're actually trying to recover as many of the original pieces as possible so that you can I'm going to use them on the steps and absolutely paint the risers. Hopefully, you'll look good. Well, stairs are the biggest challenge and I take my hat off to you for trying. It sounds like you're doing a good job. Thanks but. I have a much bigger challenge than that and it's actually this

door

, this front

door

, yeah okay what's the problem, oh boy look at the carvings, this is a nice door. Well, we're trying to save it for that very reason, uh, we think it's beautiful and it's probably original to the house, but the draft is just killing us.

Well, yes, it looks like you have a little space at the bottom. I think we took about four layers of previous flooring and then put one more layer on, but because of that it created that gap, oh, I see, so when you open the door, yeah, all I see is because if there were four layers there, They had to cut the door open or let it open. Wow, we have the time strip right now. over there but you can really feel the draft coming in, yeah well I think the door is beautiful but just looking at it quickly I would say it's probably not original to the house actually yeah it's too thick for this one jam, the door should be flush with our house. slightly inserted into the jam, I see that it's okay, but if you're willing, I'll go get some tools and we can fix this, let's do it right now.

The first thing I notice when I get to the door is this big gap at the bottom on this side it's about an inch and an eighth on this side it's about an inch and a quarter that we need to fix the other thing is I know the door is too thick for this jam and lastly also plumb and I can see that the way you check a door to see if it's plumb is when you stop it it should stay in that position if it's plumb if you let go of the gate and it falls to space means it's leaning towards the house right now to fix it I need to know how far from the plum the easiest way to do it is with a plumb line this is nothing more than a weight on a string so just plug it in to the top of the door pull the rope, let the plumb line stabilize now we check it now the first number I need is this one here, it's just two and seven sixteenths and then go down to the bottom with three and eleven sixteenths, so that says I told myself I need to take an inch and a quarter off the top of the jamb down to nothing.

I see it as good to start. Why don't you start removing that weather stripping? Now we're going to measure in an inch and a. fourth at the top and draw a chalk line to nothing at the bottom and remove all that material and that will make this side of the jam look good because we move the stop of that rabbit further out, now we have to adjust the mortise of our hinge on the inside so it's the same dimension that we have on our door, okay, we want to make it a little bit thicker, so I'm going to adjust my scribes right there and leave about a sixteenth of an inch, okay, now just transfer that to our jam, take my scribes, hold it against the top of the jam and trace it down, that's how far we have to move this shroud.

I see, okay, let's try the door, see how it closes, okay, close, those are good seats right against the traffic jam very good in every way wow, what a difference, tommy, okay, now let's take care of that space at the bottom, okay, this is the weather stripping that we're going to install at the bottom of your door, it's actually automatic. weatherstripping, so when you install it and the door closes, this little pin right here hits the jamb when the door closes, the weatherstripping appears down filling that space, oh that's beautiful, normally this would slide up in a groove that we would make in the bottom of the door, which makes it sit flush at the bottom, coincidentally this is an inch and an eighth high and your door is an inch and an eighth from the threshold here, but at a inch and a quarter of the threshold here, okay, so we have to cut an eighth of an inch on this side for the clearance that we need to close when the door closes.

I see that's okay, so what we're going to do is add a piece of wood to each side of the door to create our own groove and it's going to cover the aluminum, hide it and we're also going to lengthen the door. Makes sense. I want the glue joint to be strong so I put two rabbet cuts on each side of the door before adding my filler pieces, well while we wait for the glue on our filler strips to dry let's install the weather stripping around our door here, okay, now we can reapply the weatherstripping that you had or actually, I like this weatherstripping here.

It's actually a silicone-based weatherstrip that will fit perfectly into a slot right where the bunny is tight in the corner. If you look at the weather stripping, there's actually like a T-shaped spike right there, oh yeah, look at that, okay, so what do we need? What you need to do is cut a slot right down there to match the shape of that. How do you do that? We have a router right here with a V base that fits perfectly in the corner and the bit is an eighth of an inch, but on the top there is a t.

The shape that will give us a T slot on the inside to block the gaps between the door and the jamb is different on the three sides, so I will ask you to use a smaller weather stripping on the hinge side and a thicker one. . on the top and strike side, this will prevent the door from compressing the weather stripping too much, so it will last longer once the glue has set. I can cut the filler pieces lengthwise and widthwise and give everything a good sanding. These marks will help with the filling. the pieces mix with the styles and rails now we can install the channel and the weatherstripping and then rehang the door, okay get that top pin, tell me a little more, okay, well more for me, yeah, that's it okay, and I added this plastic pusher. pin so the head of the screw does not dent the jamb.

We also removed the striker, so now the door should fit snugly against the weather stripping. why do not you try it? Wow, what a difference it is nice and tight now. once you paint this door you'll never know we lengthened it a new old door thanks tommy it's my pleasure thanks for your help ok tommy i don't even know where to start yeah chisel it all the way length. of the jam very well, it's just to show the owner that you can do all the work by hand and that's how we used to do it years ago, yes, but you know you can set up a rule with a router and a drill bit next. and just go down there and then cut it out nice and straight, but no matter what you do, you're still going to have to finish it off at the top corners and the bottom with a chisel, although I was thinking about an oscillating saw.

I mean I guess it's also an uncommon tool for a lot of people, yeah I mean it's another great investment if you're going to go and make a door talking about uncommon tools come on are you kidding me? A router with a coordinating jig that I love made for weather stripping yes I have one and I have to say you know you don't use it all the time but when you do use it it's magic it has a 90 degree base and it has a T on the bit from the router, so yes. that idea of ​​the t, what is it?

Actually, even though you punch the hole when you slide it, it creates something for that pick to pop out of. Yeah, that spike is actually t, so when it goes into the hole, it flattens out and then. once it's there, it breaks and is now harder to get out. You could have it, if you don't have this, you can go with the alternative, obviously, which is just put a bead in there and you know, attach a blueprint. Yes this company sells a variety of sizes because you have to make sure you have the right size with the space, but they also have another option where you can buy it just as a tube, oh I see, so if you take the tube.

You can, you can run a bead of adhesive directly into the recess and stick it in place. Yes, if you have to change it, then you take it out and you have to remove all the adhesive and then redo it with this. I can just reach in and take it out and put another one in, so if this wears out in five or ten years, it'll be easy to fix once I've gone through this, and that's exactly why thank you so much for giving me this. You know well that I will. I'll lend it to you, I don't know if you can handle it, but thanks for watching.

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